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South Carolina Fireworks Plant Bursts Into Flames

Aired July 19, 2001 - 14:54 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: We'd like to show you some pictures we're receiving now from South Carolina of an explosion at a fireworks factory in Chester County. We understand that firefighters have responded to this scene, which is so clouded now with the smoke from the plant you can't really see much. But there's a plant on the ground -- a manufacturing plant which is surrounded by firefighting apparatus, and firefighters pouring water onto it. They make fireworks there.

We have reports of several injuries, and we could see earlier in these pictures, that are from an aerial view from a helicopter that there were several ambulances ringing the plant, and a helicopter also, that looked like an evacuation helicopter to take somebody to a hospital.

These fireworks, as they touched off, also set a wildfire going in the nearby woods. So firefighters there have their hands full, not just with the aftereffects of this explosion, but also with the fires that have resulted from that. Chester County, South Carolina, a state in which not only is the purchase of fireworks legal, but so, too, the manufacturing.

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